


Father+Son

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jack's Found Family, Papa!Jack just wants to protect his family, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 16:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15368538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: When a mission requires Jack and Mac to go undercover as a successful scientist father and his irresponsible prodigal son, Jack finds the lines between cover and reality blurring as he struggles to come to terms with Mac's continuing search for the father who abandoned him. And the industrial espionage, potential nanotech terrorists, and a kidnapping certainly aren't helping.





	Father+Son

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sassysarcasticlove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassysarcasticlove/gifts).



> For sassysarcasticlove. You're seriously the best and I have loved every minute of writing this for you! Thanks for all the ideas and input, and the great choice of Jack's slightly out-there code names. I'm so thrilled to have been able to write the story you wanted to read!
> 
> Shoutout to my amazing beta reader KatieComma! Your critique was so helpful and I'm still sitting and smiling at some of the comments you left for me!

 

Jack knows something is wrong the second Matty pulls him aside to speak to him privately when the team enters the war room. Well, that and the fact that it’s eight a.m. and he hasn’t had coffee yet and nothing goes well when Jack isn’t properly caffeinated.

“Jack, I need you to trust me and go with me on this one, okay?”

This sounds bad. Like, this-is-some-kind-of-suicide-mission bad. Like, Cairo bad. He knows Matty wouldn’t put any of her teams’ lives at risk if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, but they are in the business of occasionally saving the world, and sometimes that means not knowing if you’re coming back.

“I’m sending you and Blondie on an undercover op.”

“Where? China? Iran? Moscow?”

“No, Philadelpha.”

“Well, their cheesesteaks gave me heartburn once, but other than that, Matty, what’s the problem?”

“Your covers are as father and son.” Jack flinches, and he wonders if Matty can tell he’s beyond pissed right now. He and Mac _just_ got back from chasing down another one of those cryptic clues being left by someone who claims to be the kid’s long-lost dad. Every time they do this, he watches Mac get more and more hopeful, only for them to crash into another wall that puts out all the light in him for hours, sometimes days. It’s an endless vicious cycle and Jack has grown to hate every new clue, every new piece of the puzzle, because it’s just drawing out the torment. When and if they ever do find that SOB Jack is going to smash his face into a wall for torturing the kid like he has. He’s just spent weeks trying to help Mac find the miserable excuse for a father he _does_ have. This isn’t the time to remind the kid the closest thing he may ever get to having a parent again is only a cover for an op.

“It wasn’t my choice,” Matty continues. “Orders for that came from Oversight.” Jack doesn’t miss the frustration in her face. She hates this as much as he does. But her hands are tied. She turns away from Jack and back to Riley, Mac, Cage and Bozer.

“This is going to be an unusual mission for us. Our job is to stop an industrial espionage group poised to steal a new advancement in medical technology. This tech is worth billions and the company producing it has already contracted with the CIA and Phoenix Medical to use this tech on their agents. Therefore, we’re rather invested in making sure no one else has access to this. Admittedly, those contracts are not common knowledge, but we’d prefer to be safe.”

“How do we know this is going to be stolen?” Cage asks.

“As of two days ago, GenTech labs were broken into. The intruders were stopped by a security system reboot that took place during their infiltration and locked their team out of the system, but it was clear which lab they were targeting. We’d prefer to be in control the next time. So we’re sending agents in undercover to run a sting.”

“This is tech, so are you sending me and Riley?” Bozer asks.

“Not exactly, Bozer. Although I’m sure you’d find this fascinating, I’ve received specific instructions from Oversight on how to proceed. Because this is important to the Phoenix, Oversight will be personally keeping a finger in the pie.”

“So who’s going?” Jack can’t look at Mac when the kid asks.

“You and Dalton. The covers are the ghostwriter designer of this tech…” Jack sees Mac start to light up, the kid is probably excited at the prospect of going back into the nerd world with his own kind... “and his son.” Ok, Jack didn’t see that coming. He figured on them sending Mac to play the brainy one, that’s a…well, for lack of a better term, it’s a no-brainer. _What’s Oversight thinking? I don’t do nerd._

“What?” Jack’s not sure who all is overlapping, saying that. Probably all of them.

"Do I really look old enough to be his father, Matty?" Jack figures a joke will cover how weird this is, at least he hopes so. "I know you think I'm over the hill, but that's cruel even for you."

"How old do you think I look?" Mac mutters.

"Not old enough to not get carded whenever you go to a bar," Bozer snickers. “It’s worth buying the drinks just to watch the waiters check his ID five times in one night.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Mac is laughing along with pretty much everyone else.

“Yeah, it is, bud.” Jack has seen the kid get carded more times than he can count. Not that he doesn’t wish they’d still do it to him more often, but literally every time he goes with Mac to celebrate after a mission, the bartenders are genuinely concerned. Which is why they started the tradition of just hanging out at Mac’s house after missions instead.

“You definitely fit the age profile for what we need. Your cover persona is a year out of college and just quit a job as a CPA for a large firm in Boston. He’s a problem child who’s been in and out of trouble all his life, academically and personally. And his father’s trying to put him back on track so he can take over the family business. Which is, Jack, where you come in.”

“Awesome.” He can feel the sarcasm dripping off his voice.

“Your cover is a reclusive scientist who’s being pulled out of the shadows because the thing he created is about to become the next big thing in medical technology. We’ve set up your backstory to make it plausible that you’ve been working from the shadows, but now that your creation is making headlines, you have to make public appearances so people trust your tech. Which is why you don’t have to worry too much about being well known by GenTech.”

“What is it exactly I’m supposed to have invented again?”

Matty sighs. “Well, in Jack-speak, let’s just say it’s a tiny little robot army that goes into your body and repairs bones with something that won’t snap again and isn’t going to need to be removed like plates and screws.”

“I thought they had things like that already?” Riley looks up.

Mac turns back from the screen, smiling. “Nanotech has become big in the past few years. But the thing about this breakthrough is the compound these things are able to synthesize right from inside the human body itself. They don’t have to take anything in with them but them. Then from the blood and lymph and bone fragments they create what they need for their repairs.”

Jack laughs. “I hope they’re planning on naming them MacGyvers. Because they sound an awful lot like you, bud.”

“Jack, this is a serious meeting.” Matty glares at him. “And they’re called Nexus 317.”

“If I got to invent them, why don’t I get to name them?”

“Because you didn’t _actually_ invent them, Jack.” Matty rolls her eyes.

“Still. Not fair.”

“You should be glad I used cover names you had on file for yourself and didn’t create something new for you. I already regret it,” Matty says, handing both Mac and Jack large manila envelopes. Jack already knows what’s inside; everything they’ll need to disappear into their cover IDs. There’s something both exciting and awful about getting these envelopes, Jack thinks. For a little while, he gets to be someone else, and his own life can be put on the back-burner. _But eventually, as covers come and go, you start to wonder how much of them you absorb. Whether you’re still you or if over time you’ve twisted into something different._

He’s not exactly impressed with his driver’s license. “Why did you use that picture from when I shaved my head? That added like ten years.”

“Because in the newer dossier photos you had a black eye and three stitches on your cheek. Not exactly what we’re going for in brainiac scientist.” Jack touches his face reflexively; the scar is still faintly visible and he can feel it.

Mac has opened his packet as well. “Wait, Trey and Alec Goldhammer?”

“I’ve been waiting _years_ to use this one.” Jack starts running through the backstory he’s created for this particular cover. _Grew up in Detroit, played in an indie rock band as a college student, likes custom-building his cars and good Indian food. And now, apparently, is a science genius as well. Good thing Mac’s coming to make sure I don’t blow our cover in the first ten minutes._

“Why do I have to have your ridiculous code name?” Mac grumbles.

“Hey, man, it’s a great name! Seriously, you should be proud I decided to let you have this one. Trey Goldhammer’s one of my favorite covers.”

"You could at least have picked something that didn't sound like a sleazy used car salesman."

Mac studies his own ID. The photo, Jack sees, is from back when he first joined the Phoenix. His hair is longer and Jack, because he’s looking for it, can still see the vague haunting of the Sandbox in the kid’s eyes. But no one else is going to see anything other than some college frat boy.

Sometimes Jack hates how often people assume Mac’s a normal kid. It works for covers, but even off the clock no one realizes all the damage hiding under that smile and those innocent blue eyes. His family and the war may not have left him with physical scars, but he’s just as damaged as if he’d been thrown around by his dad or injured on the front lines. And sometimes Jack is the only one who knows that.

“So when do we start?” Mac’s voice is just slightly too quiet.

“Your plane leaves tomorrow.”

Jack flinches again. It’s not enough time for him and Mac to adjust to the idea of this. He doesn’t think a year would be long enough. He should sleep, he never can sleep well on planes, but the thoughts keep chasing around his head. _I can’t do this. Mac’s just trying to reconnect with his real family. As much as I want to take the place of that idiot, because only an idiot would ever let go of a kid as wonderful as Mac, I can’t. He doesn’t want me to be his father. He wants me to be a brother. And he at least deserves closure. He deserves to find his real family._ Jack’s pretty sure Mac deserves so much more than what his real father will likely turn out to be, but the look the kid gets in his eyes when they find those clues…it’s that ten year old still believing Daddy’s coming home for his birthday.

 

##

 

The next morning (four a.m., it’s too early for this), he and Mac meet the Phoenix plane with suitcases and duffles in hand. Jack avoids really looking at Mac.

“Are you ready for this?” Jack asks. Mac nods.

“Of course.” Mac’s eyes are anywhere but on Jack.

Jack can see how hard he’s struggling. How desperate he is for this to be any other mission. Mac takes his Swiss Army Knife out of his pocket and hands it to Bozer. “Hey, keep this for me, okay? Alec’s not much of a pocketknife guy.” Jack wants to snap. This is so wrong. Mac handing over his knife? It’s just making it clear how much of himself he’s going to have to lock away for this to work.

Their rental car is waiting when they get off the plane in Pittsburgh. Jack decided on this; Trey is trying to reconnect with his son so a road trip seems like the best way to do it. It’ll give them a little time to work on getting their cover personas right too. Working on covers in a familiar place like the Phoenix jet is hard, because the surroundings keep reminding you who you actually are. A rental car is a good new space to start figuring out who Trey and Alec actually are.

Mac fiddles with his earpiece. “Is it too late to change our IDs, Matty?”

This is the last time they’ll be on comms with her until they get to the house in Philly. This trip is all about making sure they can sell the father/son angle. And it’s the first road trip Jack isn’t looking forward to with Mac. Because it isn’t really going to be Mac.

“You sound like a whiny teenager,” Riley laughs.  Jack wants to laugh at her comment, but it doesn’t really come out right.

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be? I’m just getting into character.” Mac takes a deep breath. “Let’s go, dad.” Jack wishes hearing the kid say that didn’t sound so strange.

Jack loses a classic country station he was enjoying about halfway through Pennsylvania, and while searching for a new one he finds classic rock, which is almost as good. The one part of himself he keeps, through all of his covers, is his music. He doesn’t think he could part with Willie Nelson or Aerosmith, not even for a mission. And stuff like “Despacito”, or “Look What You Made Me Do”, he just can’t pretend to like it. He wouldn’t want the reason his cover’s blown to be his utter lack of interest in 21st century pop.

“Geez, dad, your music taste is as old as you are.” Mac chuckles, but there isn’t much real humor in it.

“Hey, classics are classic for a reason.” Jack turns up the radio as REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling” comes on. “And road trips are made for car karaoke jam sessions.”

“If I have to listen to your terrible singing the whole way to Philly I’m going to get out of this car and walk.” And Jack’s reminded, like a blow to his gut, that they’re not supposed to get along. This isn’t Mac doing friendly banter. This is Alec, who genuinely hates his life and his family and means every word of this.

Jack turns down the radio and stares out the windshield at the road. He wants to talk to Mac…Alec, but he genuinely doesn’t know what to say. _C’mon, Trey, you’re trying to reconnect with your kid. Ask him about his life. What does he like to do?_ According to their cover file, Jack already knows the answer; Alec likes to party hard, bring home a new girl every week, and get in trouble with the cops. None of that is anything like Mac. Well, maybe the last one, but for completely different reasons. Alec has been picked up for resisting arrest, driving drunk, and destruction of public property. Not breaking into crime scenes or stealing cars only to wreck them in pursuit of an international terrorist.

The point of cover IDs is to be different from who the agent is in real life. But Jack thinks this is taking things a bit too far. He doesn’t know how sweet, sincere, loyal Mac is going to pull off the part of a womanizing, boozing frat boy. Jack, now, he’s had years of practice being anything he has to be.

He should have more faith in Mac. After all, the kid impersonated Murdoc not that long ago. But that did end with him getting made as an imposter and them almost getting killed, so Jack’s concern is still valid. And moreover, as much as Jack hates to admit it with every fibre of his being, Mac and Murdoc share some similarities. They tend to keep their emotions and expressiveness bottled up. They’re cool and logical. None of that fits Alec Goldhammer in the least.

“So…anything you want to see in Philly?” Jack knows it’s the kind of question you should ask a twelve year old, not a twenty-two year old. But he’s drawing a blank. He can’t even ask about some weird science thing, because Alec was a finance and accounting major. Mac doesn’t have his usual paper clip bending thing going on, and as much as Jack said that habit used to bug him, it’s _wrong_ to see the kid’s hands doing nothing.

“I hear the party scene’s pretty good, if you know where to go.” Alec shrugs, looking him directly in the eyes.

Alec is pushing Trey’s buttons, trying to start a fight. Trying to make his dad give up on turning him into the model son.

“Not happening. You’re here to help me unveil the Nexus.” He still wants to call them the MacGyvers.

“Yeah, like I care about some medical tech that’s gonna be way overpriced for everyone but the people who don’t care what it costs.” Jack can hear some of _his_ Mac bleeding through, that frustration with the way the world works, and a deep desire to not be a part of the problem.

“Enough with the attitude, Alec.”

“If you stop talking to me, we’ll all be happy.”

Jack doesn’t want to talk anymore. He doesn’t want to hear this frustration and buried hate in _Mac’s_ voice. It’s so wrong. It’s like his kid is there but gone somehow. _Is this how people feel when someone they love gets like Alzheimer’s or dementia or something? Like it’s barely even them anymore?_ He knows Mac will snap out of it once their covers can safely be put aside, but still, it hurts.

 

##

 

The house in Philly that Trey Goldhammer is supposedly renting is _nice._ As in old family money nice. A brownstone type in a fairly quiet neighborhood, big and classy and fancy, with the kind of décor Jack’s afraid to touch (and Matty has told him the house belongs to one of her old contacts who owes her a favor, and if Jack breaks anything it comes out of his paycheck, so he’s extra careful). It has a massive dining room and guest room, and Jack wonders if part of the plan is to host some party here to draw in the design thieves and let them get close to Mac…Alec. That’s the part of the plan he doesn’t really like.

The house is tactically sound from an agent’s perspective too. They’re separated from other buildings, so they don’t have to worry about being heard through the walls. They have clear lines of vision on all sides with the windows, and there aren’t any nearby trees to block the view. Jack knows this is supposed to be a con run, but there’s never a guarantee things won’t turn messy. And a break-in or kidnapping attempt is something he’d like to see coming.

Their rooms are upstairs, at the opposite ends of a hall. Jack wishes they’d put Mac a little closer to him, but it makes sense given the covers. Still, the house is supposed to be a place where they won’t need to be pretending. He quickly unpacks his suitcase, and there’s more suits and less tac gear on this mission than he’s used to, but it won’t be the first time he’s had to work an op with a charming smile instead of a Beretta. Still, he has all his gear just in case things go sideways. And in his duffel, right next to his gun, Mac’s SAK he took from Bozer when Mac wasn’t looking. Because it’s just not right having Mac without it. He feels like it’s bad luck for the kid to go anywhere without that knife. And yeah, Mac would tease him about being superstitious, just like he does about Cairo Day, but Jack figures you don’t make it this long in the job without some kind of sixth-sense spooky awareness that things just don’t always follow logic.

He goes downstairs, pulling at the stiff collar of the dress shirt Trey would wear every day, and Mac’s sitting at the kitchen island with a glass of water and a sheet of paper. He’s folding the paper into intricate little origami birds, and Jack figures even without paperclips the kid needs a way to keep his hands busy, but one that isn’t _Mac_. Every agent with covers chooses “anchors”, little physical tics their cover persona has, to remind them that they’re in character. Trey wears a pair of wolf-head cufflinks and twists them. Apparently Alec makes origami cranes.

“I need your crash course in nanotech, ok?” He’s still a little tense. If he doesn’t remember the terms exactly as Mac tells him, he’ll give himself away in seconds. And Jack isn’t known for being good with names.

If he’s being honest with himself that’s not the only reason there’s a muscle tight in his neck when he asks. Inside the house they can drop the act, be themselves and run this case. But he’s spent an entire car ride with Alec Goldhammer back-talking him and shutting him down, and asking any more questions and getting the silent treatment; Jack couldn’t take it. But Mac turns around with a smile.

“Sure.” He pulls a massive stack of papers and folders out of one of the suitcases. Jack groans. “I brought plenty of homework for you.” He spreads out the first stack of papers. “First thing we’re gonna do is get you familiar with medical nanotech history, so you can explain why the Nexus is better than anything that’s already in production.”

Jack thinks it’s truly odd, when he sits down across from the kid and gets a good look at what he’s wearing, that this time it’s him in the clean-cut button down and Mac in a slightly too-loose band tee and worn-ratty jeans. His hair isn’t as controlled as it normally is either, and it’s all falling into his face and over his eyes. But he’s still the same geeky kid as always, flipping pages of notes and spouting off technical terms at a rate Jack thinks will make his head explode.

When Jack’s too overwhelmed to see straight anymore, they mutually agree it’s time to get food. They drive into town and even though Jack thinks Trey should probably go to a classier restaurant, he picks a diner instead, a little hole-in-the-wall place that looks like it hasn’t been updated since the seventies. _He’s trying to figure out what this kid he’s barely spoken to in years likes, and from all the stories about him, Alec would dig in his heels at going somewhere upscale. And Trey’s sure not gonna take a kid known for getting drunk off his ass to anything close to a bar._

They eat in relative silence. Once in a while, Jack ventures some inane question Trey can dredge up. Alec answers in one or two-word replies, concentrating a lot more on his hamburger than on the conversation. Alec eats slower than Mac (Jack swears the kid inhales food and doesn’t ever taste it, and that if it wasn’t a required ingredient to continued existence would stop eating altogether), but still a lot faster than Jack, who’s deeply enjoying his burger and chocolate milkshake. _This place wasn’t kidding when they said best shakes in town._

“So, are you seeing anyone special right now?”

“What would you care? You threatened to kick me out of the house after I got that blond one…Penny?...pregnant.”

Jack chokes on his milkshake and immediately feels it in the bridge of his nose. He squints and pinches the sudden pain.  
“Ahh, brain-freeze.”

“I’m pretty sure only people who actually have brains can get that.” _Is that a bit of humor?_ Jack looks up, and he can see the slight tension. Mac and Alec are sort of mixing right now, and that joke, that was pure Matty. He can see where Alec meant it to come out cruel but it’s just like Matty’s sarcasm, biting but not scarring. That’s Mac slipping in.

“Hey, I just designed a billion-dollar medical breakthrough. I think that means I have a brain.” He has to make a comeback, Trey won’t let Alec have the last word. And it gives the kid some time to shove Mac back under the surface where he belongs right now.

When Alec’s done, he stands up fast.

“Hey, what’s the rush?” Jack’s still only half done with his shake after the brain-freeze incident.

“Why would I want to hang around with a fossil like you?” He grabs his jacket from the seat, and even though it’s nearly the same style as his brown one, the black leather looks wrong, somehow, because Mac is too sweet and nerdy to be trying to look like a punk. Tough, yes. Punk, no way, that’s Jack’s department. But Alec isn’t Mac. Jack flinches at how hard Alec slams the door behind him when he leaves the diner.

And Jack pays their bill, gets in the car and drives away. He doesn’t want to leave the kid out there on his own, but this is what they have to do.

 

##

 

Jack hears the kid come back. At three a.m. The door slams and then slow, tired footsteps shuffle up the stairs. Jack hears the shower turn on and off and then nothing. He lays there wondering where Mac’s been all night. As Alec, he should have headed downtown to check out the bars and anything else going on. Jack wonders how far the kid is sinking into his cover. _Is he going to have a hangover tomorrow?_ Jack’s never, ever seen Mac get that drunk since the first Phoenix mission where he couldn’t save one of their own agents from bleeding out in the field from the aftermath of a shootout. The kid didn’t normally lose control like that, but the agent they’d lost had been so excited to go home and tell her fiancé she was pregnant. And after they came home Jack had found Mac half passed out in a bar after combing the town for him for three hours. He’d just been trying to get that overactive brain of his to stop running scenarios for five minutes. To stop going over all the ways he could have saved her.

He wonders if he’s ever going to have to go looking for Alec.  If Mac wants to go deep enough into the cover he might even fake being drunk enough to not get home. Or with this stuff about his dad hanging over him, maybe he won’t have to fake it. Jack won’t admit to anyone but himself how worried he is about Mac. The kid’s being jerked around like a dog on a short leash, and he’s still just _okay with that._ Everything about his relationship with his missing father is toxic and manipulative and Mac just doesn’t see that. He sees what he wants to see, which is a father who had a reason for leaving and is now trying to reconnect with his son.

Jack doesn’t sleep much that night.

In the morning, Mac’s in the kitchen, making coffee. He’s moving slowly and looks tired, but Jack can’t see any signs that the night was worse than just long.

“You know, you could sleep in. It wouldn’t mess with your cover at all to not be out of the house until noon or something.” Jack unfortunately meets with all his lab techs at ten. He has no choice.

“How was I gonna get any more sleep with you clumping all over the house?” Mac yawns. “You sound like a herd of elephants.”

“Be glad I’m not wearing my tac boots.” Jack grimaces. These oxfords are slick soled and they’re going to rub a blister on his heel in less than two hours, he’s sure. He’d almost rather be getting shot at. _Almost._

He shoves a bagel in the toaster, the good kind he picked up from the corner bakery on their way in yesterday, and takes a mug of coffee from Mac. The kid pours himself a bowl of shredded wheat, _the unfrosted kind, how does he manage to eat that cardboard stuff?_ , and sits down across from him.

This would be a milk run if not for the fact that their covers are such a mess. Jack wouldn’t mind spending a week in Philly with Mac, just the two of them able to relax and regroup after all the disasters that have gone down lately. He knows the kid’s still shaking the last of the effects of that nerve gas, and Jack’s secretly grateful this op shouldn’t be too physically demanding.

But this dad thing is messing with everything. Jack wonders how much Oversight knows of what he and Mac have been up to in their spare time. He’s starting to think this is a not so subtle hint to drop that search. Oversight probably wants their agents focused and at the top of their game, not distracted by unsanctioned investigations. This op is a slap in the face, a push to make Mac remember his real dad is gone for good.

 

##

 

When Jack walks into the lab, he’s already assessing the room. He knows Grady’s in on the con, but none of the other lab techs are. It’s a Saturday, so they’re at half the staff that would normally be there. Which is good, because Jack is here to keep these guys occupied so when Mac shows up he has room to get his hands on some pictures of what they’re working with.

The plan is for Jack to get a read on the staff. See if any of them act squirrelly around him, like they don’t want him to see what they’re doing. And then a couple hours into this lab inspection, Alec’s supposed to show up, being his usual annoying self and come to bother his dad at work because he _can._ And because he’s Trey’s son, the guards shouldn’t give him too many problems, and he can come in and take pictures of the technical stuff, and no one’s going to worry too much about what he’s doing because everyone thinks he’s an idiotic kid. Heaven knows Jack has no idea what is important to get information on. He’s already forgotten half that nanotech spiel Mac put him through yesterday.

“Good to finally see you in person Dr. Goldhammer.” Grady shakes his hand. Two other men and a woman come up, all in lab gear with the GenTech logo on the shoulder. “These are my associates; each of them heads one of our teams. Dr. Marlowe, our robotics expert, Dr. Stevens, our bioengineer and chemist, and Dr. Spencer, our programmer. I think you’ll be proud of the way they’ve executed your designs.” Jack remembers them from some of the dossiers he skimmed in flight the previous day. All three check out. No apparent ties to any underground organizations.

But they’re team heads, and anyone on these teams could be their mole. From the targeted raid caught on the security cameras, those guys knew right where the Nexus lab was. They had inside information, or they have a good enough hacker who could have gotten past GenTech’s firewalls. Jack’s inclined to think it’s the inside man. None of the week-work interns have enough access to be the one, but the real die-hards who stay seven days a week have security codes, not badges. It was a code that got the thieves in.

Jack pretends to inspect the place, and the prototypes that are only visible through a computer screen hooked to a high-powered microscope. He remembers just enough of the jargon Mac drilled into him to nod and smile at the right times and make somewhat intelligent comments on the nanobots’ performance. He’s not the total rock-head he pretends to be, (because he’s learned it’s always best to let people underestimate you and think you’re less capable than you are), but there is a point at which he genuinely doesn’t know what people are talking about anymore.

He’s watching everyone, and there’s two interns who stand out to him. A nervous boy with bitten nails and a serious case of jitters, and a woman who spends a little too much time adjusting her computer screen so it’s not easy for Jack to see.

It’s a relief when the door opens and he hears Mac…Alec, come bursting in. “Dad! Wow, this place is like Frankenstein’s lab!” Even in character, Mac gets that much right. He’s always corrected Jack when Jack calls the monster Frankenstein.

“Alec. What are you doing here?” Trey is coming to the front now, severe and annoyed that his problem child is here and will likely embarrass him in front of his colleagues, even though Trey’s only just met them. _This boy has done nothing but destroy his reputation over and over. Trey’s reclusive. Doesn’t like making a scene. Doesn’t like being the center of attention. And Alec is nothing if not good at getting everyone in the spotlight._

“You said you wanted to spend time with me. So I’m here.” He pulls out his phone (good, Jack hoped the security guard wouldn’t take too much issue with the son of their top tech developer. Either that or Alec would pull the entitled rich kid card and whine about it until he got what he wanted) and leans next to Jack. In the camera lens, Jack can see there’s a clear view of the lines of computer code running the operating program for the bots in the background. Jack smiles softly. Mac’s using his selfie trick to get good visuals of the programming. They can’t risk trying to create a disc image or downloading the program some other way, but they’re hoping Riley can piece together enough from these images to know what OS they’re working with and how to fake the code well enough to fool the thieves. Just in case.

“Hey dad, smile a little. C’mon, bring your kid to work day’s s’posed to be fun!” Jack’s sure the kid’s playing some kind of drunk or high on something angle, but there’s a whole lot of pure Mac enthusiasm slipping through.

“Hey, he can’t have that phone here.” One of the lab techs moves to take it away. “This stuff’s confidential, no pictures. And your cell signal might disrupt our tests.” Alec holds onto the phone, pulling away from the tech.

“Hey, man, I have rights. You can’t just take my phone away.”

“Alec, be reasonable.” Jack moves toward the kid, hand outstretched. “He’s just doing his job. And he’s right.”

“Well, then, I’m leaving.” He goes to the door, then stops, looking at the canister that holds a dozen long cylinders filled with the nanobots; Jack secretly thinks it looks like a Star Wars prop. “Cool.” He takes another picture.

“Hey!” Dr. Marlowe grabs the phone away before the kid can protest. Well, before Alec can. Jack knows Mac could see the guy coming up well before he was within reach.

“Give me that.” Jack takes it and shoves it in his pocket. _Should drop it on the floor, or in that water tank in the corner. Payback for all the times he’s destroyed mine._

“Dad! Give that back!” The pleading look on Alec’s face is almost comical. “That’s not fair.”

“I’ll give it back when we leave. So I can make sure you take every one of those photos off it.”

“But I want to go now. This place is boring.”

“Then come here and delete every one of those pictures. Where I can see you do it.” They sent automatically over an uplink to Riley’s computer back in LA as soon as Mac took them. Mac will only be deleting them from the phone itself. He has to admit this was a pretty good plan on Matty’s part. Every tech in the lab saw that Alec and Trey have serious issues. And that Alec definitely doesn’t grasp the seriousness of what they’re doing. He’s a kid messing around, who’s just here for laughs and raising a little hell. The kind of person who might think stealing a billion-dollar science experiment just to piss his old man off is a great joke.

Alec shuffles across the room, balking and moving slowly and carelessly. He walks past the table where the robotics techs were demonstrating the bots’ fine motor control and the sleeve of his baggy sweatshirt catches on the edge of the petri dish the bots were in. Dish, suspension gel, and bots splatter on the floor. Jack hears several techs groan, and Dr. Marlowe swears in French.

“That darn kid.” Jack sighs. “Hey, you made this mess. Come here and help.”

“No.” Alec’s standing with his arms crossed. Jack can see one hand slipping into his sweatshirt pocket. When Jack grabs his shoulder and forces a handful of blue cleaning towels into his hand, he makes sure to cover up the small silver tube the kid just pulled out.

The bots are all enabled with a theft detection program, after the near miss of a few days ago. If they’re taken out the doors, the small signal emitters in them that allow them to be tracked in the body will set off alarms. Thankfully, that signal can be stopped by a lead-lined tube. Jack’s never failed to be impressed with Mac’s sleight of hand tricks. Within seconds, the tube is filled with the gel and probably a few hundred of those bots, and then slipped back into his pocket. They finish cleaning up, and after making sure the pictures are deleted, Jack watches Mac walk out of the lab.

“They’re a real mess at that age, aren’t they?” Dr. Stevens says. _I hate it when people do that._ “Mine won’t come out of her room. Sits in there and plays video games and yells at me.” Jack wishes these people could meet the real Mac, because it doesn’t matter how many PhDs are in this room, Mac’s smarter than all of them put together. _Maybe he is a mess, but not the kind of mess you think. More the kind of mess who gets inside that big ol’ brain of his too much and gets lost in there._

Jack sighs. “I keep hoping he’s going to snap out of it. But he’s just determined to spite me at every turn.” He goes back to the biochemist who was explaining the bots’ synthesis process, glancing quickly at everyone in the room. Most of the looks are sympathy, disbelief, or anger. But the woman who’s been shifting her computer all day looks…intrigued. Jack makes a mental note of her name from her badge, _Karen Waziluski, what kinda name is that?_ and pretends to listen to the intern blathering on about complex carbons and amino acid chains.

As soon as he’s left the lab he sends the name to Matty. By the time he gets back to the house, she has the file. There’s nothing in it particularly interesting. Born in Boston, divorced twice, one unmarried son living in Pittsburgh. Degree from MIT, no outstanding grades or achievements, and worked exclusively for GenTech since graduation, on programming and coding. Nothing here screams sabotage. He thinks she’s probably more married to her job than her family, if this record is any indication. Unless there’s blackmail involved; then all bets are off. He can’t stop thinking of Amsterdam. Sometimes people do crazy things to protect their reputation or someone they care about.

He waits around at the house for a while, checks in with Matty, and starts to worry about Mac. They weren’t supposed to get home at the same time; too suspicious if they’re being watched, but still. He wouldn’t be so worried if the kid didn’t have a million dollars’ worth of nanobots in his sweatshirt pocket. He’s about ready to go start combing the streets when the door opens.

As soon as he closes the door, Mac relaxes. All of Alec’s rigidity slips away and he shakes himself slightly like a dog coming in from a rainstorm.

“Thought I might have picked up a tail on the way here, so I went and killed a couple hours wandering around town.” He hands Jack the nanobot container.

“You could have texted me.” _I was worried about you, you little idiot genius._

“I shut my phone off in case they were tracking that. And might have also sort of taken it apart.”

“At least it was your own phone this time. Do you know how tempted I was to drop that thing in the saline tank when I confiscated it?” The last phone of Jack’s Mac destroyed (fifth one this year and he’s pretty sure he’s singlehandedly responsible for the company only providing free replacement warranty on the first _three_ in a year) is somewhere at the bottom of Crystal Lake in Minnesota, attached to a contraption Mac used to short out a boat motor.

“The photo trick worked,” Mac says. “Riley’s just started on the analysis, but that’s complex coding we were seeing. These bots are totally program controlled, even their movements. And according to what Dr. Spencer was saying when I came in, the code can be overwritten completely for updates. So these things can be made to do just about anything with the right programming.”

“Why does that sound like I should want those things as far away from me as possible?” Jack has never been fond of robots. Despite what Mac and Bozer keep insisting, he’s pretty sure the AI apocalypse is nearly upon them. And as scary as fully mobile versions of Sparky would be, Jack thinks something that can get into your bloodstream and tear you apart from the inside is even scarier.

“Because you probably should.” Mac glances at him. “We’ll know more when Riley’s done analyzing that code. Sounds like she’s having some issues, but she said she thinks she’ll have it to us by tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds good. Want something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.” Mac looks a bit lost. Jack wonders if this cover is taking more of a toll on him than Matty and Oversight expected. _I wonder if this is harder than doing this with someone he didn’t know. I’m not his dad, and he knows it._ Jack’s never going to be anything more than Mac’s big brother, at least to the kid. But there’s a part of him that knows that if they hadn’t just been scouring the globe for Mac’s real dad, Jack would be pouring his heart and soul into this cover. _Like I’m not already doing that._ Because the kid deserves someone who’s going to be there, no matter what. Someone who wants to protect him from a cruel world that eats good people like him alive. And Jack wants to be that person, _god, he wants that more than he’s wanted anything in a long time,_ but he can’t ever really be that. Because Mac’s spent the past fifteen years trying to find the real dad he lost. He deserves at least some closure.

Mac’s curled up on the couch, and there’s an old western on but Jack’s willing to bet the kid’s not interested in the action in the least. Judging by the thousand-yard stare he’s got going on, he’s thinking about the day.

Jack stands and watches him for a minute, then goes to the kitchen. Jack would never admit this to anyone, and if Mac says a thing about it he’ll flat out deny it, but his favorite comfort drink is Bailey’s in hot chocolate. His dad used to make it for him, well before Jack was actually legal, whenever he was having a really awful day, or if he was sick, or if the weather was cold. Now, it reminds him of the old house, and that couch with Scout’s fur permanently embedded in the cushions, and the sweat and horse and hay smell in his dad’s shirts while they sat on the couch and watched marathons of John Wayne movies.

He mentally thanks Matty (or her friend) for a well-stocked liquor cabinet, and starts fixing the drinks. There’s packaged cocoa mix in the cupboards, but making Dad’s hot chocolate with that would be sacrilege. Jack enjoys the routine of crumbling chocolate bars into a saucepan, stirring in milk until it’s just the right thickness, adding just a tiny bit of salt, then the Bailey’s. He digs two mugs out of the dish cabinet and pours in the drink, then joins Mac in the living room.

“Here. Looked like you could use a pick-me-up.”

“It’s just…it was a long day.” Mac’s not looking at him, and Jack figures the kid’s going over every harsh thing he said to Jack over the course of the day. It’s almost instinctive, what Jack does next. He leans over and puts his arm around the kid and pulls him in to lean against his side.

"We're not still on the clock."

"I know." Jack hands the kid a mug. “Just humor me and beat me at checkers again, will you?”

“Nice to know you’re finally acknowledging my superior skill.” Mac laughs. He takes a sip of the hot chocolate and looks up at Jack, and there’s already a mustache of brown foam on his upper lip. If Riley were here she’d be taking blackmail pictures forever because the kid just looks so _young_ right now.

“Yeah, well, you beat me at checkers, I beat you in _Halo._ ”

“You know guns and aiming is not my skill set.”

“Yeah, but admit it, it bugs you that you can’t beat my high score.” Jack reaches under the coffee table and digs out a box, one of those combination games that is checkers, chess, and backgammon all in one. He arranges the checkers and Mac picks black, as usual.  Also as usual, in about ten minutes Mac has triumphantly yelled “King me!” five times, Jack has three pieces left, and if he moves any of them he’s toast.

“I have no idea how you do that. Rematch?” Jack asks, conceding defeat.

“Sure, if you want to get your butt kicked again, old man.” Mac’s grinning. And Jack is totally willing to be beaten in checkers all night long. He makes them a frozen pizza and they finish two more games before the timer goes off, and while they’re eating Jack puts a pepperoni on the board and bites a checker before he realizes he’s doing it. The look on his face must have been priceless, because Mac laughs so hard he drops his own pizza cheese-side-down on the carpet. And then runs to the kitchen for a bunch of weird stuff to make a cleaning goo that can take out grease and tomato sauce because if they do any lasting damage to Matty’s friend’s house they are doomed.

 

##

 

Jack doesn’t feel like cooking in the morning; mostly because they stayed up until three because Jack wanted to win at least one game. He never did. Mac wouldn’t let him. So going out to breakfast it is. He thinks that diner they went to probably serves a pretty good one. They could take the car, but the morning is pleasantly cool and Jack thinks Trey would rather walk. And Alec’s just going to have to go with it.

The kid looks about sixteen this morning because he’s wearing a sweater that’s obviously too big for him, with sleeves so long they cover his hands. Jack guesses it must be an old one that belonged to Harry, since it’s got a moth-eaten collar and several holes. His hair’s a mess and he can’t stop yawning. Jack’s pretty sure if anyone sees them, their cover should be just fine. Mac looks like any teenager dragged out of bed before 1 p.m. on a Sunday morning.

Jack’s a little taken aback by the girl in ripped skinny jeans and a red crop top who dashes across the street and pulls Mac into a full-blown kiss, then slaps his cheek. He’s even more shocked when he realizes who it is. _Riley? Something’s wrong here. She was supposed to be in LA._ Mac glances at him for a split second and then back to Riley.

“Alec! What the hell? You snuck out before I woke up and you didn’t give me your last name or your number or anything, and I’ve been all over this city looking for you!”

“Wha…”

“You _cannot_ tell me you don’t remember Friday night. Kyla?” She points to herself. “I thought I was good enough to at least warrant a notch on the belt.” _Oh, no, don’t go there. I do not want that in my mind._ “And a phone call for a rematch.”

“Kyla! Oh god I’m sorry. I didn’t…” Alec slaps his forehead.

Trey cuts into this. The girl has no right to be coming around here and making a scene. “I don’t know who you are but you need to leave.”

“Who the hell are you? His babysitter or somethin’?”

“I’m his father.” Trey isn’t going to want a public argument. People are stopping and staring at them; this is getting out of hand. Sooner or later it’s going to get publicized, like everything else.

“Dad! I’ll take care of it!” Alec is glaring at him. “This isn’t your problem!”

“It’s not my problem when your one-night stand is making a scene on the street?”

“Are you gonna let him jerk you around and talk to me like that?” Now she looks mad. And ready to slap Alec again. “Your type are all the same, your movie star model looks and no-commitment attitudes, Mr. Twisted Steel and Sex Appeal.” _She used my line._ “You’re not getting rid of me just by bringing your dad into this.”

Alec takes her by the shoulders. “It’s not like that, I swear. But can we go inside and talk where we can hear each other and we’re not blocking traffic?” She nods.

They step into a small café that’s dim and dark and smells like chai. Riley practically drags them to a corner booth and slides in on the cracked leather seat. She orders coffee for each of them and as soon as the waitress is gone she leans over the table to where Jack and Mac are sitting.

“Sorry to do that but I had to do something fast.”

“Riles?” Mac still looks like she’s turned him on his head. Which is a perfectly valid reaction to what just happened. He shifts slightly in the seat, fingers nervously twisting a loose thread unraveling from his sweater’s sleeve.

“Matty said we needed to step up the pace. There’s a situation emerging in Budapest and Oversight wants you two in there ASAP, so this con needs to get wrapped up fast. She thought adding a problematic girlfriend might speed things up.” Jack guesses what’s going unsaid is that Matty and Oversight don’t think he’s doing a good enough job pushing Alec away. “And I can run your tech better from here too. Also I am going to have to wash my mouth. Man, kissing you was weird.” She glances at Mac.

“What’s this about running tech?”

“Well, those nanobots are programmed for what they do. And neither you or Mac know how to fake programming. That’s part of the package we’ve got to sell with these things.” They heard that in briefing.

“You could have emailed that to us. Wasn’t that the original plan?”

“It was till Mac got us those images of the code yesterday. Those bots are designed to interface with an OS you supposedly designed from scratch. It’s incompatible with anything else; forces the hospitals to use your tech rather than just getting the bots and connecting them to a regular programming system.”

“Really want to get their money out of everyone, don’t they?” Mac mutters. Jack knows Mac’s not a big fan of this; he doesn’t care who gets the money for these things because either way it’s outrageous. But industrial espionage is one thing. And after talking to Mac yesterday, they can’t be sure these new players aren’t terrorists.  

“Ok, join the undercover club. On one condition. Don’t you ever talk about ‘last night’ again,’ Jack says. “That’s just wrong.”

“Agreed.” Riley shakes her head. “I just couldn’t think of another way I was going to know Alec Goldhammer.”

“That’s…fair.” Jack sighs. The fact that Riley’s here is disconcerting, and not because she’s pretending to be Alec’s one-night-stand. She’s supposed to be background support. Bringing her in like this means something’s getting more serious than they expected.

When Jack calls Matty that afternoon, he finds out Mac was absolutely right yesterday. “The intel MacGyver gave us proves these nanobots can do a lot more than just repair bone, in the right hands. Those biosynthetic properties mean they could be used to create a poison from chemicals already in the body that would be absolutely undetectable by a tox screening. They could fake any number of natural deaths and no one would know. These things have the potential, in the right hands, to be a terrorist weapon.”

“That’s what Mac was saying.” Jack’s bad feeling about this mission has just gone way, way up. _Maybe it’s not a milk run after all._

 

##

 

On Monday, the lab is hopping. The big unveil is set for Friday, with a press conference and gala reception for donors and sponsors on Thursday. Everyone is stressed, and Jack tries to stay out of the way as much as he can, praying no one asks for his help with any issues. If they do he’s done for.

He’s as stressed as if this actually was his life’s work about to be revealed to the public by the time the day’s over. He doesn’t really care if the bots are ready to hit production yet or not, but he hasn’t been able to get anything concrete on anyone, and he’s spent the whole day surrounded by interns who think he’s the godfather of this thing that’s been their baby for the past two years. He thinks of anyone asks him any more admiring questions about how he invented these things he’s actually going to punch someone. He wonders if a person can get withdrawals from not getting into a good fistfight for too long, because if that’s possible that’s what’s happening to him right now. He’s not the kind of guy who can just sit around a lab all day and do nothing. So when he sees the kid about to head out the door in a t-shirt and sweats, carrying his running shoes, he has an idea.

“Want to go run together?”

“You hate running.” Yes, Jack whines and gripes about it constantly when he has to do it for missions. But this isn’t going to be chasing a bad guy. This is just father and son time. Trey would definitely do this with Alec. He’d try.

“You don’t.” Jack says.

Mac looks up from tying a shoe. “Okay, well, don’t blame me when you get winded halfway through and I leave you in the dust, old man.”

Jack _knows_ he’s going to be sore tomorrow, but now the challenge is on. “Oh yeah? Think you’re getting rid of me that easy, huh?” He shoves the door open. “You’re about to see why Trey Goldhammer’s still got the time to beat on the Renaissance High School track hall of fame.”

“Oh really?” The kid shoves his shoulder with an infuriating grin, pushing his loose hair off his face. “And how many years ago was that exactly? Weren’t there like stegosauruses around back then?”

Jack doesn’t respond, just plants his feet and breaks into a run. He’ll need all the head start he can get; he’s seen this kid run down an actual freaking _airplane._

By the time they reach Fairmount Park, the kid has an easy lead and Jack’s lungs, legs, and face are all burning, in spite of the chilly fall breeze. They stop in a small cluster of trees, away from the most traffic of joggers, dog-walkers, and cyclists. Jack’s stomach growls, loud enough to be heard over his breathing. “Wish we’d have thought to bring lunch.”

“You volunteering to carry the picnic basket next time?” That laugh is genuine, not sarcastic. The kid pushes sweat-soaked hair off his face and leans against a tree.

“Nope. Maybe my credit card though.” Jack sits down in the leaves below the tree. After a minute, so does Mac. Because this is definitely Mac now. Either that or Alec’s finally warming up to Trey. It takes far too long for Jack to realize that’s not a good thing in their case. They need to be driving the wedge further and further between the two men, forcing Alec to turn on his own father in anger.

It’s just not happening. Jack thought he was capable of pulling off any cover, anywhere. But he’s wrong. He can’t fake that he hates this kid. And Mac can’t pretend to hate him either. Maybe there’s another way to do this, something that doesn’t involve dividing the house. But Jack can’t think of one. _Even if I’ll never be the kid’s real dad, I’m the closest damn thing he has to one. I can’t screw him over, not even for a cover._ He still remembers the awful sinking feeling in his chest when he got mad at Mac and refused to talk to him, and then Murdoc snatched him. He’d spent literal hours with the same thought pounding through his head. _If he dies thinking I hated him, I’m not going to be able to live with it._

If it was just Matty they reported to, he’d hash things out with her. Sure, she’d hate him for a while, but they’d come up with a plan, and it would work. But with Oversight hanging over this whole mission, Jack’s stuck. Oversight isn’t going to approve deviating from the plan. Jack has a feeling there’s something more at stake here than just industrial sabotage. This feels like a test. And it feels like he’s failing it.

“Hey. Earth to Dad. You look like you’re gonna hurt yourself trying to think.” Mac’s standing over him, holding out a hand. “Need some help getting up, there?”

“I’m your dad, not your damn grandpa. I’m fine.” Jack stands, wincing slightly. He hadn’t felt that pulled calf muscle until now. But he certainly feels it all the way home.

 

##

 

Tuesday, Mac spends most of the day at Riley’s. They’re doing something technical with the nanobots he snatched from the lab. Probably checking her false coding against the real deal in case Mac needs to stage a demonstration when the thieves actually approach Alec for the bots; Jack doesn’t know what exactly is happening. He spends most of the day at the labs again. Wazowski… _no, Waziluski, Mac would correct me and then laugh at me actually having liked an animated kids’ movie…_ is definitely acting suspicious, fidgeting with her earrings and her pen, talking to everyone in angry, clipped sentences, and avoiding all of Jack’s questions by repeating that she’s busy fixing some bugs that need to be out of the system before the unveil.

When his phone rings, he takes the call right there in the lab. Trey should be taking this out in the hall; but he’s trying to push this along. He’s sure the mole is in this lab, even if it isn’t Waziluski. This is just another card in the game.

“Dad, I’d like to bring Kyla home for dinner.”

“No. That’s not happening.” Trey’s not having some street hooker in his house. There’s too much attention on them. And Alec’s only going to move on to the next one in a week. He’s not actually serious about this one.

“You said you wanted to know something about my life. And now I’m trying and this is what I get for it?”

“You know I don’t want that woman anywhere near you, let alone me.”

“She’s not what you think! Just give her a chance, she’s a good person.”

“Who makes her money calling guys on a street corner.” Jack’s cringing at insulting Riley, even Riley’s cover ID, like this. No matter what she ever did, he’d never treat her like this.

“She’s an artist.” Jack has no idea what Riley’s cover is, which he guesses is how this is supposed to be. Trey has no idea who Alec’s new interest is and given the kid’s history, he’s probably not wrong to assume the worst. For all they know, this Kyla is some gold-digger come out of the woodwork to try and get an in with a family who’s about to become very rich and very in-demand.

“I said no. What you do with your life is your business, but I want no part of it.”

“I love her. Get over it.” _Okay, Trey, what are you going to do? He’s got a definite track record of picking total losers, but maybe this one isn’t. And even if she is, better to have her know what she’s dealing with. Let her see who she’s gonna have to answer to if she pulls anything dumb._

“Okay. Tomorrow night. She can come to dinner.”

 

##

 

It’s just Riley, it shouldn’t be so hard to plan a meal. But Jack finds himself in the kitchen on Wednesday afternoon debating whether he should make a pot of his dad’s three-alarm chili. He can’t remember if Riley told him once she didn’t like hot sauce. _I’m sure we’ve gotten carry-out Mexican food on more than one stake-out with her._ He should know this, but his brain’s full of nano-tech jargon.

“Are you just going to stand there and stare at the meat until it cooks by the sheer force of your willpower?” Mac’s standing in the door, watching and grinning.

“No, actually, I was planning on flash-frying it with the sheer heat of my astonishing good looks.”

“If you don’t make a decision she’s going to be here before you’ve got anything ready.”

“Fine. I’m gonna make the chili but don’t come and complain to me later that I burnt all your taste buds or something ridiculous like that.”

“You know, I could probably adjust the stove heat so…”

Jack forcibly pushes the kid outside the kitchen entirely.

“We all know if you cook, the kitchen will probably catch fire, explode, or fill with some kind of noxious gas.” Honestly, he hasn’t seen something Mac _can’t_ make with kitchen supplies. Besides food. He’s eaten at the kid’s house plenty of times, and usually Bozer is there to cook, which Jack has learned is the only time it’s safe to eat what’s on the table. Mac tends to…experiment.

Jack prepares the chili and sets the pot to a low boil. The secret to good chili, his father always said, was to stir it consistently so the hot sauce got spread evenly throughout.

“You have a press conference and reception tomorrow. You’d better be able to talk about this stuff.” Mac spreads out the folder of nanobot research on the dining room table. “It’s cooking, you don’t have to stare at it. The watched pot never boils and all that, right?” Jack reluctantly leaves the stove and sits down to try and cram a few more gibberish syllables into his head. Fortunately his press conference speech is being written for him. He just has to know how to pronounce this stuff.

He’s wading through the ten-syllable glory of a word that Mac has explained loosely translates to what-the-bots-do-when-they-repurpose-fragmented-bone-tissue when he notices there’s something wrong. “What’s that smell?” And then there’s an ear-piercing shriek that sends Jack to his feet and reaching for his gun before he realizes this isn’t some sort of situation alert. It’s the smoke alarm.

Mac grabs the folder off the table and starts waving it at the smoke alarm. “Jack, open the windows. The ones down the hall. We have to get the smoke away from here.”

“Can’t you just pull the batteries out, genius?” Jack pulls the pot of rapidly boiling over chili off the stove and sets it aside. So much for keeping a clean house.

“It’s wired into the house electrical system, so that would be a no.” The alarm’s so loud Jack doesn’t hear the knock at the door until someone yells.

“Are you alive in there? Is it safe to come in, or did something blow up?” _Riley._

“I think it’s safe. Jack’s three-alarm chili isn’t a joke though.”

“What?” Riley walks in. “Oh god, not the chili.”

“Oh no.” Jack remembers everything. He made that one day when he was staying over at the house with Diane and Riley was sick. He’d sworn his recipe was a cure-all, and she spent the rest of the day throwing up. _And told me she never wanted to eat that again._ That was so long ago.

“What say we just order Chinese carry-out?” Riley and Mac both nod, and then Riley starts laughing. And then Jack does. And then Mac.

They sit there, laughing at the food, at the smoke alarm, at themselves, until Jack genuinely thinks he might not be able to breathe. _This, this is good. This is family._

He forgets there’s a mission, there’s a job to do. Only for a minute, but a minute is long enough. And then the phone rings. It’s Matty. And she doesn’t sound happy. Jack takes the call into the next room, leaving Mac and Riley to argue over the respective merits of Kung-Pao chicken and Moo Goo Gai Pan.

“Dalton, I need progress.”

“There’s nothing. Matty, if we didn’t have that security tape I’d swear nothing was going on here.” Even Waziluski’s actions aren’t criminal. Maybe she just doesn’t work well under pressure.

“Well, we do have the tape. And we know what they’re after. Seems like the problem’s on your end.” This isn’t normal Matty, but she’s got Oversight breathing down her neck. “You’re not convincing them. They don’t believe Trey and Alec Goldhammer’s relationship is on the rocks.”

 _Ah, knew that was coming._ Jack knew he wasn’t harsh enough. But how can he be harsh with a kid who’s the human equivalent of a golden retriever? _What do you want me to do, kick him to the curb and tell him to go get his shit together and not come home until he does? Do you think that’ll convince them he’s ready to break?_

“They’re not making a move, Jack, and the unveiling is in two days. Once that’s over these things hit production and stealing them becomes almost useless. We are running out of time. We need a push.”

“Yeah, I know! What do you want me to do?”

“They need to believe that Alec wants nothing to do with his father except to get back at him for all those years of control. They need him to be adrift.”

“You want me to do something drastic.”  He already knew this was coming but hearing it confirmed sends his heart down into his shoes.

“You have to push the situation to the point where they’ll believe Alec could be convinced to side with them against you. Force him to break up with Kyla. Kick him out of the house.”

“Matty, I can’t do that.” Jack knows, logically, that she’s right. But this is _Mac._ This is the kid who’s grasping at straws searching for the father who threw him away all those years ago. Jack can’t do this to him, not even as a cover. “No case is that important.”

“Jack, you need to do it.” He didn’t see Mac come in, but the kid’s standing there, and from the look on his face he’s heard enough.

“Are you sure?” Jack knows Mac can hear everything he’s _not_ saying. _Your dad abandoned you, you’ve just been searching for him, you trust me and I don’t ever want to say any of this to you, not even if it isn’t real._

“It’s just part of the cover.” Mac’s arms are folded, his eyes on the ground. He’s too quiet. “We have to.”

“There’s a celebration gala tomorrow night for the unveiling.” Jack really doesn’t want to do this at all, much less in public, but that’s their best chance. Their thieves will probably be at the gala, scoping the place out, and if they can create a scene there, it’s sure to be overheard. Hopefully then the thieves go to Alec, playing on his anger and resentment to get him to help them. And then this can all be over.

That also means he has a day and a half to give himself an ulcer worrying about how he’s gonna say all this to the kid. He never wants to see the level of hurt he knows this is going to bring ever cross Mac’s face, especially not if he’s the one causing it. He barely talks to Mac at breakfast, fumbles his way through the press conference, mis-pronouncing half the words Mac made sure he actually knew how to say.

 

##

 

And then there’s the gala. Alec shows up seriously under-dressed, but at least he’s got the class to actually wear a button-down instead of a band shirt. He’s still wearing jeans and tennis shoes, but it could be worse.

The reception’s happening at one of the most upscale hotels in town. The whole lobby is decorated in GenTech’s green and white, and the front has banners with the Nexus name and design displayed billions of times larger than life.

Jack has a plan. When Trey Goldhammer gets up front to speak after the guests have all been seated and have their first glass of their complimentary drinks, he calls Alec up with him. The kid looks startled, but to his credit he doesn’t fight it.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for your generous support. I’m sure most of you don’t know me well,” a ripple of humor goes through the crowd, “But I assure you I am incredibly humbled that you’ve all helped make my design a reality. I’ve envisioned creating better ways to heal the human body since I lost my wife ten years ago ( _The cover story is painful; Debbie Goldhammer was in a car accident as a teenager that required her to get a plate and screws in her skull. When a screw dislodged later in life and ruptured a blood vessel, she died of a cerebral hemorrhage in her sleep_ ), and the Nexus is the first step in that project. As I’m sure you’re aware, I’m not a man of the spotlight. I’m only here now to reassure you that this project is my life’s work, my dream, and that I would not allow that dream to be given to the world if it were not perfect.” He reaches for Alec’s arm, pulls the kid in close.

“And so, effective immediately, I’m turning over my share in GenTech’s corporate activity to my son Alec.” Another ripple, this one of shock. All week the tabloids have been snapping up Riley’s carefully planted fake stories of the kid’s antics. People know the rumors. They can’t help but know. “And I’ll be retiring to the place Debbie and I always considered our second home, Meridian, Texas.”

“Dad…” Alec is a bit shaky. “I can’t…”

“You’re more than ready to take over the mantle of the Goldhammer family name.” Trey is turning away from the mic on purpose. He doesn’t do public. He really doesn’t do public family spats.

“But…”

“You’ll be one of the top board executives in a year, I don’t doubt it.”

“No. Dad, I can’t. I promised Kyla I’d move to Paris with her so she can study her art there.”

“Alec, this is a career.” Trey’s voice is a low hiss. _This boy has done some stupid, impulsive things before, but this takes the cake._ “This is a life. You are not throwing this away for some whim. In two weeks you’ll be tired of her. This is a permanent situation. You need this.”

Alec is furious, now there’s no concealing how badly this is going. “You’ve run my life for the past twenty years! You made me go to college, you forced me to get a job I didn’t like, and you hate every girlfriend I’ve ever had!”

“That’s because none of them were good for you!” Jack knows this is bad, he needs to keep himself and his own personal issues distant from Trey’s persona, but right now all he sees is Nikki with a gun leveled at Mac’s throat. “They were using you.”

“You don’t know that!” Mac’s anger usually runs cold and calm, but Alec’s is hot and violent. It’s a smart decision to make a persona’s reactions starkly different from your own, Jack recalls. It makes it easier to remember who you are and who you’re not. He hopes it’s working for Mac. Because for him, the lines are blurring. “You never bothered to get to know any of them! You wouldn’t even let me bring them home.”

“You’re not bringing the disaster you call a life into mine! How do you think I feel, watching you make a fool out of yourself, out of me?”

“I’m going to go stay with Kyla. I don’t care what you think of her. She likes me for who I am, and she doesn’t try to make me into the perfect child you always wanted! She doesn’t care if I’m successful or smart or…anything!”

“Alec, I don’t care if you’re any of those things either. I just want you to live past thirty!” Jack shouts. He knows he’s losing control of this, because he should be thinking of the stupid shit Alec Goldhammer’s supposed to have done in college, but all he’s seeing is Mac, leaning out car windows, defusing bombs with seconds left on the timer, tossing a grenade out an embassy window, locking himself in a room full of nerve gas.

“You say that, but you never stop forcing me to be this person you think is what you want, and I can’t be that! And I can’t stay here and keep living with you being disappointed in me!”

Jack flinches. _He’s not as lost in his cover as me, right? He doesn’t mean that. He can’t think I’ve ever been disappointed in him. I’ve always been so proud of him._ “No! You are not leaving on your own! You’re in no fit state to drive anywhere!”

“Why don’t you trust me?”

“The last time you drove like this you wrecked your car and you were in the hospital for a week!” Jack can’t stop seeing it, this, this is real too. The tires squealing when Mac slammed the pickup he stole into the van that Jack and Riley and Bozer were being held inside. The way the truck skidded and then crashed off the side of the road into a ravine, stopping the van from doing the same, because Mac would rather wreck the vehicle he was in than hurt his friends. Jack remembers scrambling out of the van, trying to run down the hill with his hands still zip-tied together, seeing the truck upside down in a creek with steam rolling out of the hood. He remembers yanking the door open, dragging Mac out, and then the panic when he saw the blood and the broken glass embedded in his chest. The desperation of trying to keep the kid alive until the medics showed up, because _god he was so pale and so quiet and Mac’s not supposed to be quiet._ “I thought I was going to lose you.” Jack knows his voice is breaking, and he’s glad he’s supposed to be a concerned father because if he wasn’t, their cover would be blown.

“If you don’t let me leave now, I’ll walk away and you’re never going to see me again.” Mac’s voice is low and angry, but Jack can tell he’s throwing all the emotion he wants to spend reassuring Jack into this. And then the mask cracks, just a bit, and Jack can see _his_ Mac under that façade of Alec Goldhammer’s angry rebellion. And his Mac is a hurting, scared, abandoned puppy kicked to the curb in the rain. “Please.”

“If you walk out this door now, you are never to set foot in my house again!” Jack’s trying to sell this but it’s shattering him; the hurt in Mac’s eyes is so real. “After all I’ve done for you, if you’re ungrateful enough to go running to that little hooker then you can! But don’t come running back here when she leaves you for the next man and you’re living in some crappy studio apartment you can’t even afford.”

“You made a fortune from nothing. I’m sure I’m up to the challenge.” And then Mac…Alec…turns and walks away. Jack doesn’t move from the hall, but he hears the door slam and a car engine start. And Jack walks back to his table and orders himself a stiff whiskey. He doesn’t have to act anymore, because he just watched his son walk away from him. And it’s his fault.

 

##

 

Jack spends another nearly sleepless night. He hopes this was worth it. He hopes whoever their thieves are were at that gala, heard that argument, and decided to prey on the kid’s obvious resentment and anger. _Otherwise I broke his heart for nothing._

Cold rain and fierce wind lash the house, weather just short of a full-on hurricane. He tries to call Mac, to just check in and make sure the kid was able to get to Riley’s and drop his cover and wind down. Jack wants to be _with him_ after that explosion, wants to reassure the kid that he didn’t mean any of it (he did but Mac doesn’t need to know that) and for them to just be Mac and Jack again. There’s only static buzzing on the line; the storm must be interfering with the signal, or a cell tower’s gone down. They don’t have sat phones for this op, and Jack wants to insist that from now on they be standard equipment any time. If the weather weren’t so bad he’d drive over himself. But Mac’s in good hands with Riley; she knows Jack well and she knows he can be a tough-love man. She’ll help Mac come out of his cover, he’ll be fine.

When Jack wakes up, it’s to ambulance sirens screaming by outside the window. He jerks awake, glances around the room, and then remembers. He knows, logically, that siren means nothing, probably responding to some storm-related incident, but he can’t shake the feeling that that was a bad omen.

_I shouted at him. In anger. And I told him to leave my house and never come back. I told a kid whose father literally walked out on him that his fake dad was disappointed in him and didn’t want anything to do with him._

Jack knows Mac doesn’t have as easy a time as he does shaking covers. For all he told Jack that pretending to be Murdoc was something he could get rid of when the job was done, Jack knows he was lying. He’s seen the kid wake up from nightmares on missions, and it’s always the same thing he’s whispering. “I can’t get him out, please, I don’t want to be him.”

And if _Jack_ , who’s had years of experience keeping his cover persona and himself separate, was breaking last night, what’s happening to Mac? How messed up is this kid because they had to force a situation?

And just because Jack has a bad feeling about this, he calls, again, praying the phones are back online. Mac isn’t picking up, which is odd, but maybe he’s gone for a run or something to clear his head. He usually leaves his phone behind when he does that. He tries Riley instead. “Hey Riles, how’s Mac holding up?”

“Wha-at?” He can hear the yawn in her voice. That bad feeling gets a lot bigger. Like space-worm-in-asteroid bad feeling _and Mac would laugh at that cheesy Star Wars reference, he always does_.

“Mac said he was driving to your place last night.”

“He’s not here.” Riley is suddenly very much awake. “He never showed up.” Jack hears the computer open. “I’m going to check traffic cams.” She pecks away at the keys for what feels like forever. “No. No, no, no.” That’s not what Jack wants to hear. “Jack, someone ran his car off the road. And they took him.”

“Who? Who took him, Riley?”

“I don’t know!” Her voice is equal parts desperation and frustration.

“Get me something!” Jack knows it’s so not fair to be angry at her. He just needs answers.

“I’m trying. It was an unmarked grey Ford Explorer, no plates. The people inside were all in black hoodies and they were wearing gloves. They…when the car crashed it…I think Mac hit his head because when they dragged him out he…he wasn’t…moving.”

Jack almost throws his phone in frustration. Why is it that every time he has an argument with the kid, real or fake, bad things happen afterward? First Murdoc, now this. He doesn’t want to let the thought cross his mind, but the very real possibility refuses to be ignored. _What if he dies and the last thing he heard me say to him was in anger?_

 

##

 

He’s on comms with Riley, and Matty and Cage and Bozer are calling in from the war room back home, trying to decide what to do because they lost the kidnappers’ van in a parking structure whose cameras were fritzing because of the storm, and it never left, so Mac could be in any one of over four hundred cars that left there after the end of a concert. Matty swears these guys don’t show connection to any known terrorist organization, and as far as Jack can tell they haven’t claimed to be from one either. So they’re either actually just thieves, or they’re working independently, or they’re just very, very good at keeping their real allegiances secret.

Jack’s phone rings. This is a burner phone; the only people who have this number are Matty, Riley, his contacts at the lab here, and Mac. The number isn’t any of the ones saved in it, and it’s a video call. He presses the button to cast the screen and audio to Riley’s monitor and the war room screen before he answers.

He has to raise the phone screen’s brightness the whole way to even see what’s happening. The speaker is a man with his back to the camera. His voice echoes in the room, so small enclosed space, probably concrete. Potentially a basement or a warehouse of some kind.

“Trey Goldhammer, I’m sure by now you’ve guessed what I want.”

“I want to see my son.” Jack tries to focus on letting only fear and not anger bleed through. He doesn’t want to antagonize these men and see Mac pay the price.

“Very well. He’s alive, don’t worry.” Jack sees the speaker wave a hand, and then hears footsteps. The next minute, Mac is dragged in, disheveled and filthy, shivering, with blood on his face and in his hair. _Riley said she thought he hit his head._

"D-dad?"  
"See? He's still alive."  
"What have you done to him?" It's been less than twelve hours since the kid went missing and he already looks like he's been through hell and back.  
"Why don't you worry about what we're gonna do if you don't deliver?" The big goon holding the kid locks an arm around his throat.

“Just tell me what you want!” Jack feels the panic rising in his throat as the kid struggles to breathe. That’s got to be hell on already battered ribs and lungs still recovering from that gas.

The man continues talking. “You’ll have the prototypes and the programming to me by three p.m. I will send you the location of the meet then and not before. And if you try to double-cross us or run to the cops, he dies.” He waves to his goon and the guy lets go.

There's a terrifyingly vulnerable tremble in the kid's voice. "P-please, Dad, I just want to come home." Jack knows Mac hates not being able to breathe. After what El Noche did to him, Mac’s had nightmares of drowning or being suffocated. He’s beginning to think that shaky voice isn’t fake.  
"Hear that, Goldhammer? You gonna let your kid down?" The man wrenches Alec's arm behind his back and the boy whimpers, sobbing. His shirt's torn and Jack can see deep bruising around that shoulder.

“Riley, trace it.” Matty’s voice is tight on the comms. Jack guesses she hasn’t seen Mac in this condition often. Usually he’s at least been stabilized by the time they get back from missions. Jack has seen this injured, bloodied, grimy side of Mac far too often.

“I’m already trying. They’re bouncing it around a lot of fake IPs. I’m going to need more time.”

Jack knows that, but he doesn’t want to see Mac looking this ruined one second longer. His head is hanging, he’s gasping for every breath ( _broken ribs?_ ) and there are tear stains on his dirty cheeks. One knee is wrapped up in a bandage. It doesn’t look bloody, and Jack wonders if it’s a dislocation, or broken. Maybe to keep him from trying to escape; it’s definitely more effective than tying him up, especially in Mac’s case even though these men can’t know that.

“It’ll take me a few hours. I need to get the Nexus project from the lab without setting off any red flags, and download the programming. Your deadline…”

The man digs his fingers into Mac’s knee, and the kid _screams_. A rough, wrecked-voice cry that goes straight into Jack’s bones and also tells him it’s not the first time the men have wrung that level of distress out of him.

Mac has to pretend he’s not trained to take pain without breaking. At least Jack hopes that’s what this is. But no matter what, that scream is going to haunt him. He wants to personally smash in the faces of every man on the other side of that video screen.

“You’ll bring us the designs, and the prototypes, by three p.m. Or you’ll be getting sonny here back in pieces.” The mystery man shoves the kid roughly, and when he stumbles his wounded leg starts to give out. He crumples to the floor with a keening whimper, hitting his shoulder and cheek hard against the filthy concrete.

“Don’t touch him.” Jack’s glad he doesn’t have to keep the shudder out of his voice; Trey’s not an agent with decades of training and experience. It’s sad how normal this kind of thing becomes after a while, but this is new. And seeing Mac not bothering to lock down the pain and compartmentalize makes Jack do the same.

The man casually rests his foot on Alec's outstretched leg, and the kid screams again when the man's boot presses his bad knee into the concrete.  
"Leave him alone!" Jack's voice breaks. He's seen the kid beaten, drugged, shot, and poisoned, and never once has Mac _ever_ sounded like this. He knows it's an act, _knows it_ , but the line between cover and reality got blurred a long time ago. "I'll get you the prototypes, I swear."

Then he sees something that, because his eyes were locked on the kid’s pain-aged face, he’s missed all this time. Mac’s hands are moving. Jack studies the finger movements; those are deliberate. _Sign language._ Then the video goes dark.

“Shit.” Jack hears Riley throw something over the comms. “I was so close. They’re in Philly but I can’t tell where.”

“Riles, you recorded that, right?”

“Every second.” She sounds shaken. That scream must have rattled her too.

“I need playback. When they brought Mac in he was doing something with his hands. I think it was sign language.” There was a guy back in the Sandbox, some sort of foreign aid guy with a humanitarian foundation, who was pretty much stone deaf without his hearing aids, and Mac had picked up ASL from him. It had come in handy (literally, as Jack always used to joke) in situations where even the faintest whisper over the comms could still give them away.

Jack watches the playback of the video carefully. Even though Mac’s hands are zip-tied his signs are still legible. It’s the same three words over and over.

_Bots. Program. Track._

“What’s he saying?” Riley asks.

“Doesn’t make sense. Bots, program, and track. Repeated.”

“Wait.” Riley’s fingers skittered across the keyboard, he could hear the sound and it was like seeing Mac get that ‘idea-look’. “Three days ago Mac asked me if I could reprogram those medical nanobots. I thought he meant for me to check his theory to see if they could be used as some kind of weapon, in case our guys weren’t just going the patent theft route and were aiming a little higher.”

“And?”

“And yes, it’s possible. Just like that program I stole from the NSA, it can be repurposed to do almost anything that it’s physically functionally capable of.”

“We sort of already knew that, so what’s new?”

“Well, Mac asked me if I could reprogram a few of the bots, just for kicks. So he brought me some prototypes he got from the lab and I did.”

“He wasn’t supposed to mess with those. We were supposed to keep them intact,” Jack shook his head. “I let him play with the science toys and of course he does something like that.” He’s just trying not to explode, and he usually has Mac around to sass when they’re in tight spots. It feels wrong without him.

“The bots aren’t super-smart. They can’t travel through the whole body and repair it, otherwise they’d lock some joints in place. They just have high-level location detection tech that can pinpoint where they are in the human body with a .1 micron accuracy so the computer can run them. And the program Mac asked for was to turn that into a lo-jack.”

“Like microchipping a dog.” Jack is suddenly giddy. “He’s probably got those things in him, and he wants us to use your program to find him. That darn kid.” Jack laughs, despite the fear. Mac had a plan this whole time.

Matty, on the other end of the comms, sounds just about the way Jack feels. “So let me get this straight; he took some of the prototypes and had Riley write a new program for them that turned them into tracking devices, then injected them into his bloodstream just in case something like this happened?”

“Something like that.”

“Of course he did.” Matty’s voice is soft with worry and affection. “Now go get Blondie back.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“As soon as I get my program running, we can get a location.” Riley is still typing furiously.

“We’re going to find them and get him back, Matty.” Jack is already assessing the situation. They know they’re dealing with at least three hostiles, and there might be plenty more. Depends on how seriously these guys take industrial espionage. And if they’ve kidnapped and tortured someone they think is just a normal kid, then they’ve moved way beyond petty crime. “We’ll get the intel we need on these guys and then we’re taking them down.”

“We need to hurry.” Riley’s packing things, Jack can hear it. She already knows he’s going to need her for that intel grab. “We only have until three p.m. to get there and get him back. And they’re nearly half an hour away without traffic.”

Jack glances at his watch, it’s past noon now. “We’ve got less time than we think. They’d arrange the meet to be offsite. Probably pretty far away from their actual location. They’ll be leaving well before three.”

“I’ll meet you at my building. I’m sending you the directions to their location now.” Jack’s already out the door.

 

##

 

Jack misses his GTO. Not that the crawling Philly Friday morning traffic would move any faster if he had his car, but he’d like to feel like he could get where he’s going faster than fifteen miles an hour. Riley’s keeping up on the tracking. So far, no movement. At least if these guys leave the warehouse they’ll be able to follow. But Jack would rather catch them there.

Matty’s giving him running commentary on the comms about what they need. Because this group hasn’t declared any terrorist affiliation, they need to find their computers, get the data, and get it back to Phoenix in case this is an emerging situation. When he parks, Riley gets out with him. They’re going to need to get her inside and have hands on access to the computers these guys are using, since they’re not hooked into any landlines or wifi. But Riley’s infrared scan shows the heat typical of a computer room.

That room is on the second floor. They have to get in without being seen, which might be difficult with the guard at the gate. Thankfully, Riley posing as a very lost tourist gives Jack the distraction he needs to put the guy in a chokehold and hide him in an abandoned boat.

Jack climbs a drainage pipe to a window, then rubs a clean spot on the glass to look inside. He doesn’t see anyone, just stacks of old rotting pallets and a broken hand truck. He uses his knife to cut around the equally rotted window casing and remove it, handing it to Riley down below. She climbs up after him and they drop to the floor behind a pile of pallets just in time to avoid being seen by a woman walking through the building. Jack recognizes her; Wazowski… _Waziluski, Jack…_ from the lab. She must be here to help verify that what the men are getting is the real deal. _Knew she was the sleazy one._ Riley moves, next to him, and a second later shows him a photo of the woman on her phone. He gives her a silent thumbs-up. Proof.

There’s a shout from somewhere behind him, and Jack cringes, thinking they’ve been made. But it’s muffled, coming from below, echoing up through the thin floor. Jack makes his way ever so slowly a few feet to his left. There’s a hole in the boards where a knothole rotted and dropped out.

He can just barely see down into a dim room below him. There’s a man standing directly under him, talking to someone Jack can’t see.

“If you don’t stop causing problems, I’m going to lose patience with you.”

“If you let me go, I promise, no more problems.” Jack almost laughs, because that’s so Mac. _Found him. And if he’s still cracking wise to bad guys, he’s doing okay._ And then he reassesses when the kid’s voice cuts out, replaced by harsh, wet coughing. _He thinks he’s doing okay._

"Maybe we should kill you now and save ourselves the trouble."  
"No!" Mac sounds like he’s trying to reason with them, but his voice cuts out with another hacking cough.

Jack flinches at the anguished shout (Jack can tell that's genuine fear, Mac’s alone and Jack hasn't come for him and there's a very real possibility he's going to die). He wants to rush in there and destroy those monsters and carry Mac home and wrap him up in a dozen blankets and protect him from people like this for the rest of his life.  
"Nah, let's wait. I want to see the look on the old man's face when we put a bullet in his precious kid's heart." Jack grits his teeth to keep from shouting angrily.

He tries to ignore the panting and the occasional pained whimper. Either Mac’s really trying to sell the scared kid angle or he’s in a lot more pain than he ought to be for the damage Jack can see. He hopes it’s the first.

“You’re gonna be sorry when my dad finds you.”

Jack grins.

“No, he’s going to be. Because the second he hands us those prototypes and we confirm the coding, you’re both dead men.” There’s another choked scream and Jack resists the urge to go through the ceiling right there and take these guys _down._ Riley still needs to get to their tech. And if they alert the men that their warehouse got broken into, they might wipe the data before Phoenix can figure who these guys are. He can hear Riley behind him breathing shallowly.

The pace at which they have to move to avoid making sound is agonizing. He hasn’t seen anyone come through in a while, but he and Riley move from cover space to cover space, watching each other’s backs the whole time. Finally, she points to a door. Jack pulls his gun and shoves the door open. There’s two people inside. Waziluski and some guy with headphones on. Jack crosses the room and has the woman pinned before she can say a thing. The other guy’s currently wishing his headphones were wireless, because Riley’s got the cord around his throat just tight enough to make screaming very unpleasant to think about.

“Get that data.” Jack’s struggling with Waziluski, she’s putting up a hell of a fight for a computer tech. Fortunately, like anyone else, she goes down hard when her head hits the wall. Jack takes the other guy from Riley’s grip and drops him as well, tying his hands with his headphone cord. _Hey Mac, look at me, I’m improvising._

Unfortunately, someone else picks that moment to come in and check on Waziluski’s progress. And is able to yell a warning before Jack takes him down.

“Riles. Hurry.”

“Going as fast as I can. They’ve got pretty good encryption.” Her fingers are flying. “It’s similar to the OS from the bots. Good thing I was working on that already.” Jack’s a little busy to listen to her. There’s currently six guys closing in, and one of him.

Riley's actually scaring him. She's laser focused on getting that data and when a goon reaches for her she just smashes her elbow into his throat, makes sure he's down, and keeps typing. Then she turns around, pulling her flashdrive out of the computer’s tower. Riley shoves the drive into her pocket. “I’ve got it all.”

“Then let’s go get Mac and blow this popsicle stand.”

Jack figures most of the goons came up here already. He only has to deal with three more on the way to the first floor. Well, two, because Riley grabs a fire extinguisher off the wall and sprays the third guy in the face just before he can shoot Jack point-blank. Neither of them say anything. They’ll get freaked out about that close call later.

Thankfully the door to the room they’re holding Mac in is just as decrepit as the rest of this place. Jack kicks it in, coming face to face with two guys who must have been in here to keep the kid from causing them any more trouble. Jack can only imagine what they’ve been dealing with. _Good for you, buddy._ The two guys are confused, at least in the three seconds they have left to think about anything but pain. Jack drops them instantly and turns to the kid.

Mac glances up. He’s shivering; shirt and jeans still damp and muddy from last night’s storm, and his eyes are red-rimmed from tears. His pupils are uneven and his eyes are glassy. _Concussion._

“Dad?”

Jack sits down beside him, avoids touching the kid’s bandaged knee. Mac’s holding that leg stiff, as if any movement is going to be torture. Jack wants nothing more than to get him out of this place. But first he needs to make sure Mac knows who he is and that he’s not going to hurt him. With that concussion, there are no guarantees how aware he is of the situation. Jack rests a hand gently on Mac’s shaking shoulder. “Hey Mac, it’s me. It’s Jack. You’re safe now. It’s gonna be okay.”

“Dad.” Mac leans against him and Jack lets the kid rest his head on his shoulder. _It’s just the concussion. He’s stuck halfway between his cover and his real self._ Jack keeps telling himself that so he doesn’t have to think about how good it felt to hear the kid say that and actually mean it. “You came.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“Jack, we got a problem. The cops are coming. Someone probably called in gunfire. And I’m pretty sure they’re going to be pretty confused when they see a guy they think is a tech developer in full tac gear who just took out twenty guys with a hooker who has all their computer data.”

“Yeah, I’d rather not explain all this right now.” Mac chuckles, then coughs.

"Let's get you outta here, okay?" Jack puts an arm around his shoulders, trying to find the best way to pick Mac up without hurting him further.

Mac nods desperately.

"No way are you walking on that leg." Jack lifts the kid as gently as he can. "Riley, keep his knee steady." She does, silent and shaken but to her credit not panicking. Mac is back to his compartmentalize and cope self, barely more than grunting or hissing in pain. Jack sometimes hates how much the kid tries to hide from even his friends, but right now he's grateful. He doesn't think he could have taken hearing another one of those screams. Mac’s face goes white whenever Jack accidentally jostles his leg.

They’re too slow to avoid the cops. When Jack and Riley walk out of the warehouse, they’re surrounded. Mac flinches away from the flashing lights.

“Put your hands up! Put your hands up!”

“Whoa, guys, wait! This kid needs a hospital!” Jack hopes they don’t shoot. He can’t put Mac down. Neither can Riley. But these guys look pretty pissed, and they’re moving in fast. “He’s hurt! You guys need to call in an ambulance!” To their credit, when the cops see the broken boy in Jack’s arms, they back off. They don’t take their guns off Jack and Riley, but they do call for an ambulance.

Jack doesn’t want to hand the kid over to the paramedics, and he really doesn’t want to get into a cop car instead of that ambulance and watch them take Mac away from him. The kid was as upset as Jack, reaching out for his hand when the police and paramedics separated them. But Jack’s pretty sure if he fights, these cops are going to fill him full of lead. They’ve seen the inside of the warehouse and they haven’t stopped staring at Jack the whole time.

 

##

 

It takes hours to sort everything out with the cops and Jack nearly gets taken into custody for identity theft and twenty counts of assault and attempted murder. Matty calls in probably ten favors and finally Jack and Riley are free to go to the hospital. Jack has a moment of panic when the desk tells him they can’t find MacGyver, and then realizes the only IDs the kid had on him when they admitted him were his fakes. He finds “Alec Goldhammer” in a small room at the end of the ER wing. Thankfully they put him by himself. He’s still out, and Jack takes one side of the bed, Riley the other. They hold his hands until he starts shifting, whimpering in his sleep when the movement jars the leg that’s encased in a cast and elevated over the bed.

He blinks awake, and Jack’s glad to see that his eyes look normal, if tired.

“Hi.” Mac’s voice is a soft mumble

“Hi yourself. Good to see you’re back with us.” Jack feels like there was an elephant on his chest that just stepped off.

“How are you holding up?” Riley squeezes his hand a little tighter.

“Want to be gone. Don’t like hospitals.”

“Then stop doing things that get you in them, genius,” Jack chuckles. “They tell me you apparently broke your own knee with whatever stupid thing you did to try and escape them at the car.”

“So that’s why it hurt. Thought it was dislocated. Then I passed out when they were fixing it.” Mac sighs and stares at the cast. “I was just starting to feel normal again. Think they’ll have those bone repair things ready to use any time soon? They kinda owe me a favor.”

“Hate to break it to you, but the fact that you turned those little freaky nanobots into your own personal “Find My Mac” device means they didn’t fix your knee.” Riley stifles a laugh. “And no one from GenTech wants to have anything to do with us for a while. Too much bad press. So you’re just going to have to heal the old-fashioned way.”

Mac laughs, then coughs slightly.

“Yeah, and apparently you’ve got a mild case of pneumonia.” Jack sighs and ruffles the kid’s hair. Torrential icy rain, broken ribs, and a damp holding cell hadn’t exactly been kind to the kid, especially not to lungs still shaking nerve gas poisoning.

“So that’s a nix on Budapest then. Is Oversight mad?” Mac coughs faintly, curling protectively over his damaged side.

 _Yes. Matty’s been holding the line, keeping me out of it so I don’t say something I’ll regret, but this thing turned into an overnight disaster. But if Oversight wanted the kid in fighting shape then they shouldn’t have sent him in on this op._ Jack figures if whoever this mysterious boss is comes down here and tries to give Mac a hard time about this, Jack’s going to give them a hard punch in the jaw.

"They're sending Cage and Bozer and me to Hungary instead." Riley stands up. “As a matter of fact, I need to be leaving like, yesterday. I’ll be seeing you, Mac.” She disappears and Jack turns back to the kid.

“Bozer will be happy. He keeps talking about wanting to look in Europe for movie locations. Don’t think he’s given up on that dream yet.” Mac sighs. “How long till we can leave Philly?”

“Well, Matty got the cops straightened out, so as soon as the hospital says you’re okay to go, we can get the hell outta Dodge.”  
“Good.” Mac tries to get up.

“Whoa whoa whoa, hoss. As of like four hours ago you were concussed and couldn’t even walk. No way are you getting up and walking out of here right now.”

“I’m fine.” Mac struggles with the straps around his leg. “Help me out, will you?”

“Nope. If Angus MacGyver can’t figure out how to get his leg out of a sling, there is still something a little wrong in that big brain. And we’re not leaving until that’s fixed.”

Mac leans back, sighing. “I just hate hospitals. I’d rather be home.”  
Jack pats his arm gently. "Yeah, I know, man. But you’re gonna be all on your own there. I don't want you stumbling around that house by yourself. What if you fall and break your other leg?"  
“You volunteering to stay over?” Mac’s face lit up with hope. Jack would be lying if he said that look didn’t make him the happiest he’s been in months.  
"Someone has to save you from yourself."

“Hope you’re not planning on making me your cure-all chili, though. After the last disaster…”

“Hey, that was your fault. You distracted me with your nano-techno-mumbo-jumbo.”

Mac doesn’t reply to that. He’s laid back, eyes half-closed. Jack wonders if he’s falling asleep. _Should I let him? How bad was the concussion? Should I call a nurse?_ He jumps when Mac speaks up.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“You know, you make a pretty good dad. Even if your cooking does suck.”

“It only sucked because you made me read about nanobots.”

“Thanks.” Mac’s sitting up a little straighter. “For…for everything.”

“I wasn’t gonna leave you there.”

“Not…not what I meant.” It sounds like it’s costing a lot of effort to say this. “I mean, thanks for helping me try and find my real dad.” It’s like a punch to the gut, but Jack nods. _This was only a cover. He’s not getting over fifteen years of daddy issues that fast._

“I promise, we’re going to track down every last one of those clues. I’m gonna be right there at your side.”

“If we don’t find him…that’s…I’ll be okay. I have you.” Mac smiles, and even though Jack can see the sadness in those eyes, he sees hope too. “How sad is my life that a fake dad I had to pretend I hated is way better than my real one?”

"Just don’t call me your 'old man'. Cause I ain't that old. I'm just hitting my prime."

“Let’s go home, Dad.” Mac reaches for his hand and squeezes it.

Jack smiles. No concussion, no drugs, the kid actually means it this time. _Yeah, let’s go home, son._

 

 


End file.
